Research Concept

“To the field of philosophers belongs, we believe, if to anything, also geography …” wrote the ancient geographer Strabon in the first sentence of his seventeen-volume work on the geography of the ancient world. The author, writing around the time of the birth of Christ, brings together two disciplines that belong to entirely different areas of the modern academic landscape, the earth sciences and the humanities. As a result of this modern division we have also lost the fundamental insight into the significance that the interdependence of space and knowledge takes on in those complex processes of alterations in the spatial environment and in the action guided by various forms of knowledge. The Eycellence Cluster Topoi reconnects these fields again.

Research Objectives of Topoi

The Excellence Cluster pursues the goal of researching systematically the interdependence of space and knowledge in the civilizations of the Ancient Near East, the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, and parts of the Eurasian steppe from the 6th millennium BC to around 500 AD. This research program serves the more fundamental purpose of investigating the spaces, spatial systems, and various types of space-related knowledge as intertwined factors in the development of ancient cultural systems.

In Topoi paradigmatic studies are to investigate the foundations of small-scale structures up to large expansive empires as well as spaces defined and constituted in a variety of ways. Building on this fundamental research, Topoi works out a theory of space as a constitutive element in the formation and transformation of cultures and societies of antiquity within an interdisciplinary framework.

Premises: Space as a Cognitive, Linguistic and Operative Category

The Cluster’s research concept is based on the following premises. Space is a cognitive, linguistic, and operative category for relating and coordinating persons and objects, action and movement. Concepts of space may be embedded in technical, social, political, religious, and communicative procedures. They may also be expressed materially in cultural artefacts and structures (implicit knowledge) or emerge as differentiated orders of knowledge within pictures, writing, and numbers (explicit knowledge). The category of space includes both the geophysical conditions and the active shaping of spaces. For instance, the spatial regimes of ancient civilizations depend on the delicate equilibrium of territory, density of population, and available food, while the pressure to adapt and transform creates dynamism in history. All levels within the Excellence Cluster take this historicity of spatial orders into consideration

Indicators of Historical and Cultural Processes: Space and Knowledge

The main goal is thus to comprehend space and knowledge as elements and indicators of historical and cultural processes. In these processes, spatial knowledge, the medial constitution of space and the scientific formulation of spatial concepts − nascent already in antiquity − are combined to create an increasing independence from habitual spatial practices. This perspective introduces a dynamic aspect into the current discussion on space; and it opens the possibility of research on the formation and transformation  of spatial systems and epistemic orders. The empirical, historical and theoretical study of models shall lead to an unprecedented level of breadth and complexity in our understanding of how spatial systems and epistemic processes interact, including changes of environment that are not anthropogenic.

Reconstructing Ancient Spaces and Spatial Knowledge

The Excellence Cluster intends to contribute to a general elucidation of these questions and problems by pursuing two closely connected goals: (1) developing a study of space strictly oriented towards antiquity, and (2) reconstructing ancient spaces and spatial knowledge through the histories of scholarship, collections, and theories. The Cluster aims to investigate space and knowledge as interconnected elements of cultural systems, and to elaborate concepts of space suitable for application in interdisciplinary and contemporary contexts.